During her post-doc at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2019–2023, Nguyen was named by
The Japan Times as one of "Five pioneering Asian scientists to look out for this year". The article reported, "Nguyen's research has the potential to improve medicine and technology with new treatments for cancer and possible cures for Alzheimer's. It can enhance drug delivery systems, make fuel-cell cars more accessible and quicken computer processing, among other things." Nguyen's research involves physics, materials science and computer science, focusing on the next generation of electron microscope technology, including computational tools and instrumentation to visualize and measure individual atoms. She has said, "When you design detectors, microscopes or new computational frameworks, you're really designing new ways to look at the microscopic world... Once you have the tool, anyone — biologists, chemists, physicists — can use it to ask their own questions." == Honors and awards ==